


Squeezing My Heart

by morvish



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: 5+1 Things, First Kiss, M/M, Sleepy Kisses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-18
Updated: 2016-10-18
Packaged: 2018-08-23 02:45:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8310910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morvish/pseuds/morvish
Summary: 5 times they kissed, and 1 time they talked about it.Alternatively: Lance and Keith don't start off with the best communication strategy.





	

**Author's Note:**

> title is taken from power by bastille, and the whole album is probably the best klance mix there is out there. thanks bastille.

**1.**  
Lance was still shaking, and he wheezed a broken laugh as he directed Blue back towards the Castle. The laugh was scared and fragile. But all of a sudden another laugh bubbled out from his chest, and it was wild and free. He whooped and cried, raising his arms out. Blue chuckled but it was a bit wobbly, and Lance let free another flutter of laughter before lowering his arms to stroke the sides of his seat.

_It’s OK, I think we’re alive._

Lance couldn’t stop grinning, but there was a piercing ache in the side of his head. Shaking it, as though that would help, he realised he could hear the others talking loudly and quickly over the comms as well, but the sound had been muted, as though they were behind several layers of glass. He let out a glad sigh, which turned into another whoop, and stretched out his arms and legs.

His heart beat faster than he thought must have been healthy, but it was a reminder that he was alive, alive, alive.

“Yeah, you are buddy!” yelled a jubilant Hunk voice through his comm, the sound suddenly bursting through the muted layers, and Lance realised he must have been talking outloud. He hiccoughed at how happy Hunk sounded.

“That was amazing, Lance!” hollered Pidge. “I mean, never do that again – but that was incredible.” Lance could hear her beaming through the words.

Lance leant back and relived the last five minutes of his life. The panic of inescapable doom; the deep and aching pit of dread boiling in his chest as he realised the one option he had was to leap at the incoming horde of Galra ships. The split-second before doing so, when Keith had yelped through the comms to tell him it was a “suicide mission, Lance, don’t!” – which was, at the very least, extremely hypocritical. Lance clenched and unclenched his fists as he that particular soundbite of memory drifted back into his consciousness.

Keith’s voice had had this almost sobbing quality to it. Maybe not a full weeping maiden kind of vibe, but there was the definite element of at least one whimper, like an emotional crack in his voice.

It occurred to him that amongst the chatter pinging around the comms, Keith’s voice was entirely missing. Not even a single cheer of joy at Lance’s incredible save, or grateful comment about Lance’s continued existence. Usually Keith had a cheerful little remark like, “Good going, Lance,” or “Glad you’re still with us.” That kind of thing. They weren’t much, but Lance kind of loved pulling earnest admiration out of Keith’s unwitting hands.

Maybe he just had his comm switched off. There was a lot of noise, though Lance was still riding on too many waves of internal tumult to really be able to focus in on anything they were saying.

Lance still hadn’t stopped smiling by the time they were in sight of the Castle, despite the piercing ache which raged around the brim of his head. He pulled off his helmet in the hopes it would calm the pain. He rested his head in his palms, elbows leaning on his knees, and kneaded his forehead. Coming down from the adrenaline of expertly not dying was something he would never get used to, especially when it took longer than half an hour to get back to the Castle. Blue gently purred, a healing sound. They were nearly at the Castle, she was reassuring him. He could rest then.

Lance nodded into his hands, pressing his palms into his head.

Blue purred softly, and Lance huffed a laugh.

Eventually they landed, and Blue gently nudged him to get out the seat. Lance shook himself down, rubbing his forehead one last time. It was turning into a pretty bad headache. He wondered if they had any painkillers in the Castle. He wasn’t sure Coran would approve of a pod heal for a headache. Maybe he just needed to sleep.

When he stumbled out of Blue, and into the hangar, he was immediately rushed at by Hunk.

“Lance! Oh, Lance, Lance, Lance!” Hunk pulled Lance into a crushing hug. “You’re alive.”

“I’m alive,” Lance agreed, smiling despite himself.

Hunk let out a cheerful, albeit shaky, laugh when he let Lance go. He put a hand on Lance’s shoulder. Lance felt himself relax a little, finally. His heart rate definitely slowed to something resembling normality, and he patted Hunk on the back gratefully.

Hunk finally let him go, and they began walking towards the hangar entrance.

Shiro and Pidge were waiting nearby, each to give Lance their own excited remarks at his incredible manoeuvring. He beamed and chuckled along with them, hoping this kind of praise could continue forever.

Shiro clapped him on the shoulder.

“I think Allura and Coran probably have some stuff to say about the battle and how it went in the debrief they’re about to do, but I think for now you should go shower and rest up. I imagine you’re feeling pretty drained right now.”

Lance sighed quickly.

“Thanks, Shiro,” he said.

“I’ll cover for you, don’t worry.” He winked conspiratorially. “Just don’t let Allura catch you missing out on a debrief on purpose.”

“Gotcha.”

Lance grinned happily. The ringing in his head had subsided somewhat, being able to talk to people and get out of Blue. As much as he loved her – he couldn’t spend too long in such a small space.

Shiro, Pidge and Hunk were chattering enthusiastically with each other as they left the hangar, and Lance hung back for a moment to try and catch sight of Keith.

Instead he was roughly pulled back from the doors as the others made their way out.

“Keith, wh-” Lance’s voice died out as Keith pushed him against the wall, and looked him over, hands clutching Lance’s shoulders.

His brow was furrowed, but Lance couldn’t tell if it was angry or anxious. He seemed to assessing Lance’s entire visage. His eyes flicked back and forth, reminding Lance of a scene in this TV show when an automated typewriter had gone berserk and started writing pages and pages and pages. He raised an eyebrow.

“Hey,” he said softly, the atmosphere in the room taking him down to a near-whisper, but there was still a little bite, unsure what Keith’s problem was. “What’re you looking for? Checking to see if I’ve been possessed or something? Attack of the Lance clones?”

Keith stopped his silent appraisal, and looked up to meet Lance’s eyes.

Lance was immediately disarmed by the defenceless look in his face; the determined scowl had been replaced by something almost sad but that Lance couldn’t quite pin down.

“Hey,” he said again, the edge to his voice lost, furrowing his own brow. “I-”

But before he could finish telling Keith he was OK, Keith had made a short puff of a sigh, and reached forward, grabbing Lance by the back of the head to pull him down, and kissed him.

It took Lance a moment to realise that was, indeed, what Keith was doing.

Keith’s eyes were closed and his hand clutched one shoulder, while the other smoothed over Lance’s hair. Lance quickly shut his eyes, almost out of habit – though he hadn’t really done much of this before.

“Mmph,” he said, but leant towards him ever so slightly.

Keith responded to the movement by pushing up on his tiptoes, making Lance lean back against the wall. His hands loosened their grasp, and instead Lance felt Keith’s arms come to rest around his neck. Lance placed an unsure hand on Keith’s waist as he realised he was kissing back.

His heart beat suddenly worked itself into a frenzy again.

He found himself pulling away from the kiss.

_The kiss._

Keith had kissed him. That had happened. And now Keith was pulling away too, looking a little red in the face. Having kissed Lance.

Lance gawped at him, hand still ghosting on his hip.

Keith coughed roughly.

“Rest up,” he said, turning away, extracting his arms from Lance’s neck, shimmying from away from Lance’s hand, and hurrying in the direction of the door.

Lance made a small noise in the back of his throat.

Keith looked back, and they stared at each other for a moment too long.

“I’m glad you didn’t die,” Keith said, and finally looked somewhere else, before slipping out of the hangar room.

Lance felt himself crumple to the floor.

* * *

**2.**  
Lance thought he was being pretty lowkey.

The noble he was using all his best moves on seemed to be enjoying himself at the very least. Hyrde was definitely being receptive to all of Lance’s advances. Unless this planet’s flirting customs were totally different to earth’s – which, well, he reasoned they could be. But surely there was a universal sign of leaving when they got uncomfortable kind of signal. And so far, he had been chatting with this Aghrastan noble on and off for nearly an hour; they seemed to keep coming back to each other.

That, along with the chuckles, smiles, and plentiful arm touches, he figured he was flirting well. It definitely helped that his new formal outfit for the diplomatic balls looked so good on him. Lance was pretty certain he was in the lead for the Best At Winning Diplomatic Balls award.

The noble leant in close to Lance, who jerked his head back in shock. He suddenly had the feeling Hyrde was about to kiss him. Instead Hyrde whispered something low and smug, some gossip about another person at the ball.

Lance breathed a laugh and relaxed again, but all he could think about was Keith.

Keith, whose kiss had apparently meant nothing. Keith, who had continued acting as though nothing had happened. Lance had been waiting for him to bring it up, say something – but Keith had been ruthlessly remaining silent on the subject, and Lance refused to bring it up himself.

He looked over to where he thought Keith was; in the corner, leaning against a pillar, arms crossed, determinedly staring at a spot somewhere on the other side of the hall.

“Oh, come on,” Lance muttered under his breath. _You can try a little harder than that to act like you want to be here._

“What’s that?” asked Hyrde imperiously, his green eyebrows pinching together a little. Lance grimaced; Hyrde was an important player on this planet, despite only being his own age. He had to remember that, and make sure to keep him happy.

Lance turned his attention back. “Oh,” he said. He bit back what could have been a mean retort about Keith if he had been Lance from a couple of years back. But instead he just said, “Nothing, nothing,” before raising an eyebrow coquettishly. “So tell me more about this carriage you were talking about; just how big is it?”

“Well,” said Hyrde haughtily, clearly glad to get Lance’s full attention back as he preened. “It’s got eight wheels, and it requires at least five – five, I think, steeds – and it’s all covered in this, I don’t think you’ll know the substance, but it’s shimmery and sparkly and very very valuable here, I assure you.”

Lance huffed.

“Sounds pretty impressive.”

Hyrde smirked back.

“You want to see it?” he said, lowering his voice further still, eyes locked onto Lance’s. There was a moment of stillness as Lance’s brain processed such a question, and one further moment once he had figured it out, and tried to hold back the shocked contortion which immediately tried to make its way onto his face. He turned it into a cough. Hyrde looked pleased at how flustered Lance had become. Though he seemed to have misinterpreted the cause of the symptoms.

“I,” Lance began, not sure how to turn down such an important diplomat. He knew if he waved over Shiro or Allura then he could easily get them to cover up for him, but he also knew they’d be disappointed at his reckless flirting. He hadn’t expected it to get this far. It never usually got this far. He was in waters deep, and they were very influential and very alien waters. “I,” he repeated, eyes darting around the room.

He saw Keith walking towards them.

“I,” he repeated again as Keith approached.

They shared a moment of eye contact as Keith sped up, and Lance was vaguely aware of Hyrde watching impatiently. In the last couple of paces, Keith seemed to nod almost imperceptibly, and Lance wasn’t even sure if he was nodding at him or to himself, before Keith’s lips were on his own lips.

Lance closed his eyes immediately this time. Keith once again brought a hand up to the back of Lance’s head, and Lance decided to go along with it. He decided that Keith’s quick nod had been for him; a warning of sorts. Not much of one though, he thought as he responded with as much enthusiasm as he could suddenly muster.

He wrapped both arms around Keith’s waist and leant down to press against the kiss. Keith sunk into him, curling his fingers in Lance’s hair, making Lance shiver. Keith opened his mouth slightly, and Lance felt his breath over his own lips. Without really thinking about it, he bit down softly on Keith’s bottom lip. And the kiss abruptly ended.

Keith slammed his hands against Lance’s chest, and pulled back, looking up at Lance in surprise.

Lance looked back in equal surprise.

Then suddenly remembered Hyrde.

He turned in a panic, hands still clasped around Keith’s middle. Hyrde looked _very_ put out.

“Wh-What’s this?” he asked, a hard edge to his voice.

“This is Keith,” said Lance, looking back to the peer in his arms. “He’s my,” his mind quickly flicked through several different words before settling on, “boy- sband.”

Keith turned to look at him with a look of despairing disbelief.

Lance tried to ignore the look, though it was pretty apparent in his peripheral.

“Oh,” said Hyrde. “I believe I see.”

And then he left with a curt swish of his robe.

Keith extracted himself from Lance.

“Your boy-sband?”

“I was going to say boyfriend but I didn’t think it sounded important enough. I panicked, OK!”

Keith crossed his arms.

Lance slumped a shoulder. “Listen, like thanks and everything for getting me out of that mess – but you realise it doesn’t actually help anything; he’s still going to be mad I lead him on like that.”

Keith took half a step back, and looked faintly surprised.

“Oh yeah,” he said slowly. “Getting you out of the mess. No problem. What are paladins for?”

Lance lifted his hands. “You … You heard me when I said that it didn’t solve anything, right?”

Keith nodded pensively. “Yeah, yeah, you’re right. OK, well, see you later.”

Lance stared as Keith wandered away.

“Bye,” he said.

* * *

**3.**  
Lance wiped his brow of sweat as he slumped down at the edge of the room, watching his bayard retract as he lay it down beside him. Keith was still at it.

He narrowed his eyes, still panting, hands draped over his crossed legs, as Keith fought three gladiators at once.

“Stop it, Keith,” he tried passively. “You’re sick, Keith,” he continued, sighing tiredly.

If Keith heard him, he didn’t react. He maybe swiped a little harder at the nearest gladiator to him.

They’d all already tried a thousand and one times to get Keith to go to bed. It was an impossible task. So Shiro had set them all on watch duty, trailing Keith until he either finally gave in and went to bed, or – and Shiro had looked at them very gravely then – “if it gets worse.”

Lance propped his cheek up with his hand and sighed.

Keith wasn’t showing _any_ signs of slowing down and Lance was on Keith Watch for another couple of hours. It was his bedtime, he wanted to sleep – but Keith either didn’t sleep at this time, or was pointedly refusing to even sleep when he should be.

“Keith,” Lance said. “Keith, wanna hear a joke?”

Keith looked over at him for a second.

“Is it your stamina?” he called out, before taking out one of the gladiators finally.

Lance scoffed. “Please,” he said, aware he was sat down and sweating in the corner while a sick person fought off multiple enemies. He was almost riled into joining in the fight to prove Keith wrong, but it was his bedtime _damnit_. “What’s it like to be kissed by a vampire?”

“You’ve told me that one,” said Keith, a strain in his voice as he pushed away one of the gladiators.

“It’s a good one though.” Lance started unlacing his boots, tired of having them on his feet. His feet should be in fluffy slippers at this time of night. “OK, how about this one… Did Dracula ever marry?”

“Why are they all about vampires?” Keith asked, breathily. Lance had to admit he was – a tiny bit impressed by Keith’s ability to keep fighting and converse. Too bad he was a fool.

“ _Because_ , if we were still on earth, it’d be around Halloween right now. How did you not know that?”

He heard Keith panting, and a clash of swords. Lance pulled at the lace on his second boot.

“I didn’t know that because I don’t keep a weird calendar.”

There was a strange swooping sound to Keith’s voice on the last word, as well as an uneventful sounding thump. Lance looked up to see two gladiators leering over Keith’s collapsed body.

“What the _quiznak_?” yelled Lance, immediately grabbing his bayard, and striding over in his socked feet.

* * *

An hour later, Lance had taken down the gladiators, slipping over a lot on the smooth floor in his socks, but taking them down nonetheless, panickedly stared at Keith with suddenly no idea what to do, put him in the recovery position, and run to Shiro’s room to let him know what had happened. Shiro looked at him blearily, then ran to the training deck with Lance. Somehow Pidge had also woken up in the commotion – or maybe they’d never been asleep.

Lance had the feeling Pidge used the nights for exploring and tinkering.

They’d sidled up to Lance at the door of the training room while Shiro tended to Keith.

“What happened?” they’d said, and Lance told them. “Lance,” moaned Pidge.

“What? I was _helping_ him if you didn’t notice.”

Pidge had smiled ruefully. “You realise you can turn the gladiators off with a button, right? And that we have comms everywhere. Including inside your helmet which is right there.” Lance had followed to where their finger pointed at a bench, where his helmet was indeed resting.

Lance remembered groaning, but managing to stop himself from slapping his face.

Pidge had patted his arm. “At least you left him in the recovery position.”

Once Shiro had finally managed to get Keith to bed – which apparently only took two days of lecturing Keith at any given opportunity and also maybe the collapsing had something to do with it – he set up a Keith Watch rota once again.

With such a big family, Lance was used to taking care of people when they were sick, so he was a little sceptical about keeping lookout on Keith’s condition when he probably just had a mild flu. OK, so the collapsing was a little worrying but that was definitely exertion. But he hadn’t passed out, his legs had given way apparently. He was a little livelier again once he’d had some water and crackers. Keith just needed rest.

But Shiro had been insistent, and Lance wondered if maybe it was something he was a little anxious over – so Lance had offered the first watch, since he had been resolved to Keith Watch anyway. Besides, maybe Keith had some alien flu or something and it would slowly manifest into something worse. Maybe Shiro was right.

So Lance found himself sitting on an armchair he’d pulled into Keith’s room, and knitting, while listening to Keith’s slow breathing.

Lance knew he was dozing off a lot, but Keith’s condition didn’t seem to be changing. His breathing was regular and, maybe partly why Lance was drifting off was because it was also kind of soothing to have another sleeping person so close to him.

He was brought out of his nap by a soft groaning noise.

“Keith?” he asked into the dark room gently.

There was another quiet whine.

“Lance?” asked the lump in the bed, sounding pretty pained now.

Lance plopped his knitting to the side, and moved over to the side of Keith’s bed. Keith had stretched out, one leg sticking out from under his blanket, with a foot poking out the other side. His head was rested against his pillow, but he was at a kind of angle. He looked very pale, and Lance held the back of his hand to his forehead. It was still hot.

“Do you need anything?” asked Lance. “Soup, tea, more blankets?”

“Mm, too many questions,” croaked Keith.

“That was two questions,” smiled Lance, leaning back against the wall, arms crossed. “I mean, conceptually, it was just the one question.”

Keith waved a hand, but it was under the quilt. He popped it out at the wrist from underneath, and waved it again, his own fingers brushing his cheek. His eyes were closed and he’d blown his cheeks up a little.

“Too many words,” he said.

Lance chuckled. “OK, no more words.”

Keith cracked an eye open and sighed heavily.

Lance breathed out in a sympathetic sigh. Having the flu sucked, he knew.

Keith didn’t seem to be able to move; he let his limbs lie where they were, but his brow was furrowed deeply.

“I mean,” Lance tapped a finger against his arm, “ _do_ you need anything though? Because that’s kind of what I’m here for.”

Keith turned awkwardly to face Lance, and slipped his legs back under his duvet. Flu-ey Keith seemed to have an even more permanent look of grump to him.

“Why are you here?” he asked. “Just the flu.”

Lance shrugged. “Guess none of us want you to die of it or something. Mainly Shiro though.”

Keith closed his eyes and smiled a half-smile. “Yeah. That would suck. Remind me to thank Shiro.”

Lance nodded. He leant his head right back on the wall. It was way past his bedtime, but at least he could be there for someone when they needed it. Or, well, he hoped Keith was appreciating that someone was there – otherwise what was the point.

Keith let out another groan and Lance grimaced.

“I feel bad,” said Keith quietly.

Lance pushed off the wall to kneel by the bed.

“Hey,” he said, trying to remember how to deal with sick people. He knew he could get just a _little_ obnoxious when he was sick, but he had the feeling that Keith wasn’t the sort to complain when he was. So the fact that Keith was made Lance feel a twinge of worry in his chest. “Hey, you’ll be OK.”

Keith nodded, letting out a burst of breath.

Lance brushed the hair from his forehead, something he would do for anyone to make them feel more comfortable.

“I know,” he said. “Let’s turn over your pillows, and fluff them up a bit. That’ll make you feel a bit better for a while.”

“OK,” Keith said, very quietly.

Lance leant over to pull the pillow out from underneath Keith, who sat up and immediately leant his head against Lance’s shoulder. Lance wasn’t used to this soft Keith. He dropped his own head to Keith’s while he turned the pillow over, and when Keith flopped back down, their cheeks brushed. Lance ignored the fluttering in his chest as he moved forward again to plump the pillows around Keith’s head up.

Lance pulled away from him. “I’ll go get you some water,” he said, voice breaking slightly, which was embarrassing. Lance hoped Keith wouldn’t notice.

Keith made a mumbled moaning noise. “No wait,” he said, grabbing Lance’s forearm with a clammy hand. “Wait, you didn’t tell me if Dracula is married.”

Lance felt the warmth of liquid joy flood his chest.

“He isn’t,” he said, grinning. “He’s a bat-chelor. A _bat_ -chelor.”

Keith’s pale face cracked into a grimacey smile. He let out a pained chuckle.

“That’s bad,” he said.

“I guess so,” said Lance, leaning down to quickly kiss Keith on the lips. “But you still laughed.”

Keith stared up at him, their noses still touching.

Lance widened his own eyes.

“Oh,” he said.

Keith’s mouth opened and closed. Lance scrambled away from the bed quickly.

“Water,” he coughed. “I’m getting – you water.”

He left the room clutching his head. _Why did I do that?_ Somewhere in the back of his mind, he was sure that he had meant to kiss Keith on the forehead, and he wasn’t sure when things had gone wrong. He wasn’t sure if kissing Keith on the forehead was right anyway. But he’d laughed at Lance’s joke, and even in his flu-ridden state, he looked like sunshine when he laughed.

“I’m just tired,” he muttered quietly as he walked along the corridor from Keith’s room. He furrowed his brow deeply, and knocked on Hunk’s door. Hunk could take over Keith Watch for now.

* * *

Lance got sick two days later.

* * *

**4.**  
They were all sat in the lounge. Everyone was totally wiped out; they had spent the day fighting. Nothing life-threatening, but exhausting and lengthy.

Lance enjoyed these evenings; sitting in the glow of their achievements, muscles aching from use, but in a good way – in a satisfying way. He never felt more like a team – like a family – than on evenings like this. They were quiet, but in Lance’s own minds they were loud with the buzzing of his pride and love.

Pidge was watching Hunk knit, seemingly entranced by the rhythmic clacking. Allura appeared to be reading from a sheaf of papers about some nearby planet, but she hadn’t changed the page for a long time now, and her gaze was steady and slightly glassy. Shiro was napping over the arm of the couch. Even Coran was there, sitting cross-legged at the coffee table, showing Keith some internal workings of the Lions. They had both caught themselves in a yawning cycle though, which was funny to witness until Lance also started yawning.

Eventually Keith stretched, and yawned one last time, setting off Lance and Hunk too. Pidge snapped out of their stupor when Hunk stopped knitting. They rubbed one of their eyes.

Keith stood up, stretching again.

“I’m going to,” his words petered off as he began to gaze into the middle distance. “I’m gonna go to bed,” he said, gloved hand scratching his cheek tiredly.

“Night Keith,” murmured Shiro, voice distorted slightly by the hand pulling his cheek up where his face was resting on it.

“G’night,” iterated Pidge, cheery despite the fatigue. Hunk repeated Pidge.

Keith waved slightly to them.

Allura waved sleepily from behind the sheets of paper.

As Keith was about to walk past him in his chair closest to the door, Lance sat up and turned to him.

“Sleep tight, Keith,” he smiled. Keith slowed down to smile appreciably, and Lance almost laughed at how tired he looked.

“Goodnight, Lance,” muttered Keith as he quickly pecked Lance on the lips. Lance leant into the kiss for the brief second it lasted, vaguely aware somewhere in the back of his mind that there was something not quite right about the situation – but he didn’t figure it out until Keith had pulled away. Keith looked at him in shock, then scuttled out of the room.

Lance looked up to see everyone else staring at him.

He touched his lips.

“I,” he said. Everybody suddenly looked very awake. “I’m going to – head to bed. Goodnight.” He hefted himself out of the armchair.

“Lance?” asked Hunk through the painful silence.

“My – uh, my own bed,” Lance said before hurrying from the room.

He went to his own bed, but didn’t manage to sleep despite his lethargy.

* * *

**5.**  
Lance watched Keith carefully. Just weeks ago, he’d looked away and Keith’s legs had given way underneath him in this very same room.

He had his hands crossed, arms resting on his knees, brow furrowed.

He jiggled his leg.

Keith took down a gladiator.

They had kissed four times in the past month. Four more times than they had ever kissed before. Four more times than Lance had kissed anyone else he currently knew. That’s an average of one kiss per week. What kind of statistics were those? At what point did Lance have to think about what they meant?

Like he hadn’t already been thinking about that.

He had made the conscious decision to not mention them unless Keith did. But Keith didn’t seem to want to mention it at all.

To be fair, Lance wasn’t sure Keith remembered the one time he had kissed him. Keith had been very feverish. But – the other times.

Lance’s leg reached jiggle capacity.

He pulled himself up.

They were waiting for a fight. Not just any old fight. They were waiting for a fleet. They knew the fleet was on its way. They were all pretty sure they were going to die. That hadn’t really hit Lance yet; he knew that, he understood it, but he hadn’t quite processed it.

Die. He could die.

A fleet of Galra was probably about to kill him and he was stressing out about Keith Kogane kissing him.

He winced.

Now he was stressing out about a fleet of Galra killing Keith Kogane.

He’d had a dream a few nights before, when they’d first found out about the attack, and he couldn’t quite remember it, but he remembered Keith was in it. He remembered dream Keith made him feel comfortable and at home.

As Lance strode over to Keith and the gladiators, intending on joining in the fighting, the Castle’s overhead comm stuttered into life. He heard Allura’s steady voice say, “All Paladins to their Lions. The fleet is on its way.”

The gladiators automatically shut down, and Keith whipped around.

Lance stared at him. He realised he was shaking as he caught Keith’s eye. He picked his pace back up towards him.

Keith’s breath had hitched, and he was staring at Lance with the same amount of intensity as Lance felt.

When he was just a step away, he pulled Keith forward into a ready kiss. In the same movement, Keith stepped neatly into his arms, wrapping his arms around Lance’s neck. This didn’t feel like any of the other times; this felt pre-meditated. As though they had both known for a long time that this would happen, like they’d figured out a time and a place beforehand.

Lance gripped Keith tighter as he kissed him, and Keith responded by pushing up at Lance, pressing their chests together hard. There was desperation behind the kiss; and Lance suddenly realised he was very afraid. And even more terrifying was that he realised he was more afraid for Keith than he was for himself.

Keith finally pulled himself away from Lance, cupping a hand on his cheek. Lance felt himself press into the touch. They stared at each other for a moment; Keith looked as though he was trying to memorise Lance’s face.

“OK,” he said.

Lance nodded, even though it hadn’t been a question. They separated, and headed to their respective lions without a second glance.

* * *

**+1.** Lance set Blue down in the hangar. His breathing was ragged, even though the battle had been over for a good half hour now. But it had been a hard battle, and Lance didn’t even have it in him to pretend otherwise. He was shaken to his core, but he was alive.

Voltron was alive. Everybody was alive.

They had done it.

The comms were quiet, but Lance figured everyone else was feeling the same way as he. He almost felt as though there were no words, but it was bubbling under the surface – the excitement. He got the idea that once he saw everyone; properly, in person, not in the lions, not just feel them through the mind meld. The mind meld didn’t let him pick them out individually; he could just feel the same undercurrent of elation. He was waiting to see them all, hug them, feel they were all really there, all really alive.

Blue opened her jaw, and Lance wasted no time scrambling out of her.

He saw Hunk walk sheepishly out of his own lion, and bit his lip.

“Hunk!” he shouted.

Hunk cried out, and rushed forward. They gripped onto each other.

“We did it,” wept Hunk, tears falling down his cheeks. Lance laughed, but he felt his own tears well up at seeing his best friend so compromised. “We did it.”

Somewhere nearby, Shiro and Keith were sharing similar elations, while Pidge rushed over to Lance and Hunk. They bent down to bring them into the hug.

“You were amazing out there, Pidge,” cried Hunk.

“Not so bad yourself, Hunk,” they replied, but their voice was wobbly and joyous.

A gleefully familiar voice shouted to them from the hangar doorway. “Come on, folks, time to celebrate a well won win!” Coran.

Hunk released Lance and Pidge, and they began to walk towards the doorway. Shiro gave Lance a one-armed hug as he approached.

“Good going, Lance,” he said.

Lance beamed. “Thank you, Shiro – for everything.”

Shiro grinned back, and turned his attention to Hunk and Pidge.

Lance felt a piercing presence all of a sudden as he became aware of a pair of eyes watching him. He hung back a little and turned his head to see Keith waiting by a pillar. Lance couldn’t stop the soft smile that sprung to his face.

Keith smiled back, and then looked away, apparently embarrassed by his excitement at seeing Lance.

Lance puffed out his chest. Keith was excited to see him.

He sauntered over to the pillar.

“Hey,” he said.

“Hey,” said Keith.

They looked at each other for too many moments of silence, and Lance could see that despite his attempted nonchalance, Keith was shaking slightly. It was probably the adrenaline just as much as anything else, but Lance reached out anyway, placing a hand on Keith’s arm.

“Lance, I love you,” said Keith, quickly but earnestly.

Lance’s grip on the arm faltered. Then he tightened it.

“Hey,” he said, just as earnestly. “I love you too.”

Keith huffed cheerfully, rearranging his crossed arms, and looking away from Lance to observe the ceiling, a lion, something in the distance. But Lance couldn’t take his eyes off Keith. He realised that the smile hadn’t dropped from his face either. He let out a laugh.

Keith looked back at him.

“What?” he said, a small smile on his own face.

Lance let out another laugh. “I – Keith,” he said.

Keith blew out, his hair fluttering from his forehead. He finally locked eyes with Lance, and placed a steady hand around his neck, pulling Lance towards him just slightly.

Lance obliged happily.

“OK,” said Keith, his voice dropping a little quieter than before. “I’m glad we got that cleared up.”

“Yeah,” agreed Lance, only a hint of mockery in his tone. He wanted to say something sarcastic, but he found he didn’t have anything funny to say. He really was glad they got that cleared up. “Yeah,” he repeated, his tone softer, lighter. “Me too.”

Keith smiled, and pulled Lance the rest of the way towards him.

Lance kissed Keith slowly, taking the time he’d never felt he’d had before. Keith reached his fingers into Lance’s hair, stroking softly, but it didn’t take long before they were gripping hard, and the kiss had become much more enthusiastic.

Lance grinned into it, breaking the contact slightly, but he couldn’t help himself. He felt Keith grin back.

“Very glad we got it cleared up,” Keith repeated.

Lance murmured in agreement, and drew him back into the kiss.

It ended abruptly as Lance smacked his own head against the steel pillar, meaning Keith had to rush him to the kitchen for an ice pack where everybody was celebrating and required a lengthy explanation as to how Lance had managed to injure himself post-battle.

**Author's Note:**

> by the way, if you wanna know what it's like to be kissed by a vampire - it's a pain in the neck.


End file.
